Hand of the King's Evil - Outremer 04 (34 page)

'You have asked, and I will tell you - though you will owe me a debt for the answer, and I will claim it later. The 'ifrit do not breathe and this is not a poison, but you might say that the man has been first poisoned by the breath of an 'ifrit, and then possessed by a fragment of its body. When it abandoned him, the poison remained. Or you might say that the 'ifrit cast a shadow in your world as a snake casts its skin, and that shadow has fallen over him and he has breathed within it, breathed it in. It is a cold thing, and eats at the will of creatures such as yourself. This one is strong, he did well to make the journey here, though it has drained him now; most would not succeed so far. The djinn do not breathe either, but my own breath, if you would call it that - or else my own shadow, even here in my own world — will rouse him, if only to my service. He is lost to you. Accept that, and go back.'

'I will stay, and see if he recover as you say. And hear what he says, after. The deceits of demons are legion, and he is a servant of the God.'

'I am a djinni; we do not lie. Perhaps he will serve your God, in serving me. That I do not know. You would be wise not to speak to him; if you ask him questions when he is mine, you will only increase your debt to me. But stay if you will, both of you. I do not forbid it.'

Now Anton could stand back no longer; he walked out onto the plateau, and saw Fulke's brief surprise.

'You, Sieur Anton? You followed me?'

'There was a message,' though the excuse sounded ridiculously thin, here and now. 'Besides,' more honestly, 'I was curious
...'

'Well. Curiosity can work to the good; we are both in a new world tonight, where we face new revelations. Though I did not know that the King's Eye would shield creatures of the underworld.'

'Creatures of spirit,' the voice, the djinni corrected. 'The King's Eye sees far, and it sees deeper than you can, human. Do not rush to judgement in your ignorance; you stand in my world now, and it is not less than yours.'

'If you would save Blaise,' Anton said neutrally, thinking that that was an argument that could run for ever, and Marshall Fulke might well be in the mood to argue it, 'it would be as well to do it soon.'

'Patience. Mortal flesh is not as weak as you suppose, though a simple scratch opened his body to the 'ifrit. He might live here for days before he died. I do not plan to linger so long, however.'

The djinni fell silent then and seemed to contract a fraction, insubstantial though it was. Anton thought that the coil of its spinning had grown tighter, like a spring compressed; he thought that perhaps there was a difference to the quality of the air immediately between the djinni and the man, a stronger dust of gold; he saw a stir in Blaise's hood, as though a bellows had blown that hot and glittering air down upon him, directly into his face. He supposed that you could call that breathing, if you were a djinni.

Then there was other movement, this time in the man himself, a little shift of muscle that became an inch-slow squirm, a cautious stretch - like a snake flowing back into its skin, Anton thought, or a man rediscovering the limits of his own body — and then at last Blaise gathered himself together and stood up.

His hood fell back, and they saw his face for the first time. It was Blaise, and yet not quite. All the features were right - the bull brow and the once-broken nose, the jaw that could outstubborn an ass - but they had once all been animated by a spirit both men could recognise, and they saw no hint of it here. Blaise's face, yes, but occupied by a stranger: that was as close as Anton could come.

'Bla
ise!' the marshal said, apparentl
y disregarding all the djinni's advice, though it had sounded good to Anton.

The man turned, slowly, from where he had been regarding the floating column of the djinni's intangible body.

'If you would call me so.'

'It is your name, Blaise. You have been far from it, perhaps, but you own it yet. As you do your rank of sergeant. Come back, and all your life awaits you, as it was; serve this creature and you imperil all, as well as your immortal soul.'

'It has touched me, it has claimed me; there is no life that can compare with that. I will go with it—'

'—And betray your masters once again, and betray the God. Blaise, you once asked, no, you
begged
to call me Magister. I granted that as a sign of your redemption, your returning to the wider brotherhood of faith. If you denied me now, I should be sorry'

'I cannot help your sorrow.'

Anton almost had to choke down a laugh at that, so apt a reply from a man who had never been quick-witted till now. The humour lasted only a moment, though, as the implications of the thought sunk in. This was not Blaise — not quite? not at all, more like, another spirit entirely, just clothed in Blaise's body — and he was afraid that Marshal Fulke would forget that.

The marshal surprised him, though, and not for the first time. He showed no sign of temper, there was only reason in his voice as he said, 'You could dismiss it entirely, if you chose to come with me. Back to your own world, Blaise, even if your old life holds no attractions. You cannot live here; this place was never made for mortal man.'

'I can live in a djinni's shadow, until it choose to let me die.'

'That is no life for a man - and I think this is no man's true voice that I am hearing, djinni. His mouth, your words, I fancy.'

'That is not as true as you think The choice is his, to stay or to leave; he would live in either case, but he will choose to stay. Just as those who are touched by the 'ifrit will choose to die. Perhaps you would have had me let him be.'

'Perhaps I would. Better to die, than to trade this half-life for his immortal soul. That is a deadly bargain.'

T do not see how serving me will cost the man his soul, if he should have one. But I will not argue theology with a Marshal Commander of the
Order of Ransom; that is a fruitl
ess occupation.'

'Begone then, demon — but leave my man, I conjure you, by the power of the God!'

That was bluster only, Anton thought; and the djinni thought so too, he guessed. At least it surprised him, it surprised them both by laughing, a sound like a high-tuned peal of bells.

'Oh, I will leave you your man, Marshal Fulke. But I will take my own.'

'We will meet again, Marshal Fulke,' Blaise said unexpectedly; and to Anton's ears it was much like hearing the djinni speak through the sergeant's voice, with just the same cadence to it.

Before Fulke could draw breath to reply, the man was moving away across the plateau - moving but not walking, not running, seeming to glide rather as though the djinni were sweeping him away on an invisible cushion of air.

The two Ransomers, marshal and knight stood and watched, fascinated and helpless as the spirit-creature and its captive - or its convert, perhaps? - dwindled into the distance. It was hard to be sure, but Anton thought that they reached the edge of the plateau and simply carried on, not falling but truly flying now.

When they were utterly gone from sight, when he could no longer make out even a dot against the horizon, he stirred and rubbed his strained eyes, and looked about him. There was a sign left behind, he saw, to show that this had not all been some fantastic illusion; Anton was almost grateful for it, as he stepped forward and stooped to pick up the broken candle.

'Blaise must have fallen on it, in his sickness.'

'Indeed.' Fulke's voice was cold and distant; his eyes had still not left the far horizon, and it seemed that neither had his thoughts. 'I had heard tales, of course, before I came to this country, but I never thought to meet any of the demon-kind. I was never sure till now that the tales were even true.'

'Sergeant Blaise reported meeting a djinni, on his way to the Roq.'

'Yes. I thought it merely a heat-dream, no more than that. Blaise was the type to insist, against all logic
...
But no matter. We know the truth
now, or some little of it, and
Blaise is enslaved to that creature. Remember, Sieur Anton, that all demon-spawn are the children of lies.'

'The djinn do not lie, according to all the stories I ever heard. It said so itself...'

'Precisely so. It said so; it was lying. That is axiomatic' Well, maybe so. Anton wouldn't argue the point with his commander. He was both wonderstruck and exhausted; he wanted nothing but to get back to the encampment, and to bed.

Fulke had another matter on his mind, though, that he wanted to settle immediately. 'Explain to me how it was, Sieur Anton, that you followed me to this place.'

Anton sighed and offered his prepared excuse again, the undeniable summons; and then confessed his curiosity again, as a good and obedient Ransomer should.

Fulke made an impatient sound. 'I did not mean your motives; those I understand and even applaud, although I do not condone your stealing the candle from my tent. I mean how you contrived to follow me through the King's Eye to this spot. I looked into the Eye and saw where Blaise would be, and came to him; but you lack that skill. If you'd simply lit the candle and said the prayer, you should have stayed on the site of the encampment.'

'That I cannot explain, Magister. I lit the candle and recited the words, much as Blaise did, I expect, knowing nothing of their meaning; and the way opened, and I stepped through here. Perhaps I was so close behind you that the wind of your passage carried me in your wake?'

'Perhaps,' though the marshal sounded quite unsatisfied. 'Or perhaps we should not enquire too deeply into mystery. It is not named the King's Eye for nothing; he watches all of us within his Kingdom, and he may have had his reasons to send you after me. This message, for example. It may be important
...'

Important, surely, to have the commander of the guard send for the marshal in the deepest hour of the night, when even Fulke might have been sleeping. But important enough to have the King in his far palace twist the nature of the world to send a discredited knight across a magical realm in pursuit of his superior officer, simply to ensure its prompt delivery? Anton said nothing, but his mind balked.

'Blow out your candle, Sieur Anton, and we will go to investigate.'

Startled, Anton glanced down at his hands, to confirm that he was indeed still holding the candle. Its flame burned quite normally now, pale in the opalescent light of this place. He drew a breath in obedience, but then hesitated, struck by a wandering thought.

'Why didn't Blaise go back to the world we know, when he fell on his candle and extinguished it?'

'That I cannot say either. Perhaps the King required his presence too, for what reasons we cannot guess; or perhaps that — creature — worked some casting of its own, to hold him here in its snare. You must let go of Blaise, Sieur Anton, as I have already. A man lost is a man mourned, but no more than that. Blow out your candle.'

Anton hesitated no longer, but did as he was
bidden; and found himself abruptl
y back on the hillside above the road, and blinking against the dark.

A moment later, there was a transitory gleam of gold and Marshal Fulke stood once again at his side.

*

They walked back to the encampment in silence, through the sleeping soldiery and the horse-lines, past the officers' tents and on, till they came at last to the guard-fires that marked the border.

It was the attitude of the guards that first alerted Anton to some great change. They stood in unaccustomed huddles, speaking in nervous murmurs; as the two men passed they fell silent, and some abandoned their posts to drift along behind. Anton waited to hear their sergeants call them back, and heard nothing; he waited then for Fulke to snap an order, and again waited in vain.

The man in command of this watch came running, as soon as he saw the marshal's familiar figure in the fires' light.

'Magister, I am so glad that you have come
...'
'You sent for me?'

'Yes, but that was before
...
There was a voice, a creature, spirit or demon I know not, I could see nothing but a flickering light, like a marsh-phantom; but it spoke to me and said to send for you, and so I did. But—'

'But what?'

'Look, Magister. See what has happened since, just in the last few minutes

Fulke looked where the desperate man was pointing, across the border; and so did Anton.

Even in the dark, with only the faintest line of light in the east to promise a new dawn rising, he could see now what it was that had changed.

The border had been a terrible thing but a constant, immaterial and yet dreadfully real, a line torn across the natural world. By daylight or at night, it had been equally clear: a rift in the hills' march, a shift in the fall of sunlight, a break even in the unending pattern of the stars.

Now there was nothing, it was gone. Now they stood on the road and saw that road follow its proper course, running onward along the bank of a stream that they had not dared to drink from, because it flowed from an invisible and accursed source. Now they could see its path glinting beneath the restored sky, they could see where it met the road and how before that it came plunging down a high hill that had simply not been there when Anton left his place of duty a bare hour since.